Drivers no longer available for Vista laptop

[mwyson]

No support at all whatsoever! I hate this company! I installed Windows 10, no drivers. I installed Windows 7, no drivers. I installed original Windows Vista, no driver support whatsoever! Called tech support, no help. Kept telling me Vista not supported. Told me to install Windows 10 and get drivers from Microsoft. Not available. Why doesn't HP have a legacy driver download site?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

For whatever reason, HP retires support for consumer PC's and printers that are over 10 years old.

Most of the drivers still exist on the FTP site, but you have to do all kinds of searching to find them.

So, I can probably find most of the drivers you need if you post the product number of your notebook.

The product number can be found on the same label as the serial number.

Please do not post the serial number.

That model series was only supported for Windows Vista, but you can use the most of the Vista drivers on W7 if you would prefer to install W7.

Also let me know if you installed a 32 or 64 bit OS.

[mwyson]

Thank you for your reply. I can install win 7 64 bit. The pt# is: FE945UA#ABA

Service tag: dv2945se

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

I am going to give you the links to some of the drivers you need, so you can connect to the internet, and whatnot.

Then you can let me know what else you are missing.

Chipset:  Installs the coprocessor and ethernet.  Install and restart the PC.

ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp37501-38000/sp37730.exe

Graphics:  You will need to manually install this driver on W7 as follows...Run the below driver.  You will most likely get an unsupported operating system error.   Close out of any error windows.

ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp42501-43000/sp42635.exe

Go to the device manager, click to expand the display adapters device manager category.

Click on the Standard VGA Adapter listed there.

Click on the driver tab. Click on Update Driver.

Select the Browse my computer for driver software option, and browse to the driver folder that was created when you ran the file.  That folder will be located in C:\SWSetup\sp42635.

Make sure the Include Subfolders box is checked, and the driver should install.

Then restart the PC.

Audio:  Install and restart the PC.

ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp40001-40500/sp40270.exe

Wifi:  This is an actual W7 driver from a HP business class notebook...

https://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp49501-50000/sp49541.exe

Quick Launch Buttons:  This is also an actual W7 driver...

https://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp49001-49500/sp49104.exe

Touchpad: 

ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp37501-38000/sp37794.exe

SD card reader:

http://ftp.hp.com/pub/softlib/software9/COL19729/ob-55777-1/sp37726.exe

If there is anything else you need, please post the device manager description and the hardware ID for the device.

Use this guide for how to find the hardware ID for a device...

https://www.howtogeek.com/193798/how-to-find-drivers-for-unknown-devices-in-the-device-manager/

[mwyson]

Thanks for all your help. Before I do this I will tell you that I have had Windows 10 installed but the only problem is I could not get a good resolution because of the native windows graphics driver. Do you think the Vista video driver would work in compatibility mode?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

See this discussion for how to get the Vista graphics driver to work on W10...

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Video-Display-and-Touch/Pavilion-dv2000-windows10-Nvidia-Grap...